


the night sky in our veins

by katarasvevo



Category: Love Simon (2018)
Genre: Bram's perspective, Crushes, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, ok be quiet elle, this fic is my personality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 07:54:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14015724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarasvevo/pseuds/katarasvevo
Summary: Bram falls in love - fast and unsteady, like a meteor shower - and luckily Simon is there to catch him.





	the night sky in our veins

**Author's Note:**

> i watched love simon yesterday, and hOO this is my love song to two boys (i stan one disaster gay and one distinguished gay) oh, and i fused in some elements from the book + took a few artistic liberties :)

There is a boy in Bram’s English class, and he has eyes the colour of summertime earth - a shade between light and dark. Hazel-brown. Radiant.

His name is Simon Spier, and he is a little shy, a little awkward. He likes to wear hoodies, and whenever he seems frustrated he has this adorable tendency to bite his lip. Maybe it is just Bram, but he has a quality to him that draws in all eyes. And it is always there in the way Simon acts and speaks and jokes. (It’s most likely just Bram.)

Okay, honestly, it’s weird that Bram is making Simon out to be unknowable, even though Simon is far from it - they’re sort of friends, actually - but he’s always been weak for poetic beauty. (He's a total goddamn sap.)

(Bram knows that it’s probably fake deep or whatever, but, man, the quote, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” For some reason, it always gets him into a philosophical headspace - The Nietzsche mode, as his mom likes to call it. Which is strange, because thinking of a 19th century comedy as being the catalyst for conversations on existentialism is practically the equivalent of Mean Girls inspiring a dissection on the postmodernism movement.)

Like, the thing is, Simon is dorky. Dorky as in that one puppy-eyed kid back in middle school whom everyone just sort of gets along with. Harmless, and seemingly without bite. Except Simon does have a sharpness to him. And sometimes it gives Bram whiplash, even though Simon is never blatant about it. Like it’s some sort of subconscious, unintentional reflex, which, okay, is fair.

One day they’re in class, picking apart Macbeth, when Bram has this super great idea to position his book like _this_ , tilted at a slight angle, just so it won’t seem too obvious that he’s kind of, sort of staring.

“... dude, okay, so, have you seen the movie?” Kevin, some kid who’s always raising his hand to crack food puns in World Religions, is saying to Simon in a hushed voice.“‘Cause I got jacked up on five Red Bulls last night and caved.”

“Like, the one with Michael Fassbender?” Simon says, thumbing through his copy.

“No, the 1971 version, where Macbeth totally has Harry Styles hair, and the witches have these _saggy tits_ .” Kevin stage-whispers the last few words like it’s news on par with the Janet and Justin Super Bowl Controversy of 2004. “I mean, I don’t really remember much, but, man, they were like _flaccid_.” He cups his palms and presses them against his chest in imitation.

Simon raises his eyebrows. “Um … okay, but they’re witches, so what did you expect?

“ _Hello_ , there are hot witches, too,” Kevin argues. “Do succubi not ring any bells? Total babes. But I guess they had to be not hot for a reason. Bummer.” He slumps backwards. “Y’know, if the alternate universe theory thing really did exist, think that there’s one where I’m surrounded by Victoria’s Secret Angels instead of old lady boobs?”

“Probably,” Simon says. “There probably also exists one where you’re actually funny, Kevin.”

Ouch. It takes a full second for Kevin to register the response, and when he does, his mouth turns pouty, like he’s sulky and pissed - or maybe he’s pretending, if he and Simon are friends, which maybe they are, too.

But damn. Guy’ll be feeling the burn for days.

Then Simon’s gaze flits over, meeting Bram’s eyes for the briefest millisecond, and - just, wow.

Bram thinks: he might be a tad bit enchanted.

 

✧

 

Bram has been staring at the Creeksecrets Tumblr page for a full minute and a half now. Obsessing over what he’s just done. What he’s just written.

Five lines.

Around a hundred words.

A Ferris wheel.

Now that’s his heart right there, distilled into a single text post. And now that it’s out there, for the whole world to see, Bram has the tiniest urge to bury his face into a pillow. Or - honestly, he doesn’t know. But this - it feels liberating. Like catharsis. Like something heavy’s been lifted off of his chest.

There’s a high in his veins, electric and alive, that Walter White’s meth could only hope to replicate, he's so sure.

 

✧

 

Not long after, someone reaches out to him, and Bram’s heart nearly does a fucking double take.

The message sits in his folder, starred and read. He’s gone through it a million billion times now. Bram knows he should probably be exercising a bit of caution here, but whatever this message is, it feels authentic. Real. Like his post really did reach out to someone on an interpersonal level, and it got them build a bridge to make their ungainly way across to the island that is Bram.

To think that Bram briefly considered deleting that post.

(He’s glad he didn’t.)

 

✧

 

Simon Spier does this thing sometimes where he scrunches up his nose, eyes narrowing slightly, bottom lip jutting out in a moue whenever he’s lost in thought. It’s cute, he’s cute, and Bram is trying so very hard to look away.

They’re outside, and Simon sits sandwiched between Abby, Nick, and Leah. He’s got a pair of headphones on. His left foot is tapping on the grass, in time to a beat only he can hear. A pair of wires is curled around his fingers. There’s a smear of glittering green paint on the hem of his jeans.

Besides Bram, Garrett is going over the 4-3-3 Triangular Midfield with a bunch of their other friends. Naturally, the words refuse to register. To settle, like they should. It’s hard to, especially when the sunlight pouring down is gilding the brown of Simon’s hair. Bringing out the lighter hues.

Then Abby is nudging Simon, Nick yanking down on the cord of his headphones, and Simon is mildly complaining but his mouth is turned up into a smile that’s half-exasperated. Half-fond.

Something fluttery wedges itself inside Bram’s chest.

Something combustible.

Half-formed.

Sunlit.

 

✧

 

The first email comes. Then a second one, and a third. Soon enough they’re maintaining regular correspondence, and every message turns Bram’s stomach into goo that presumably has the same consistency as that sorry excuse for chili at their school’s cafeteria. Only this one is something Alain Ducasse would totally serve at his restaurant - and yeah, so what if Bram is getting too ahead of himself?

There is a person out there in this world who knows about Bram’s gay secret thing, and even if the anonymity is what’s loosening, liberating Bram, it’s nice, this feeling, of having someone to sort of fall back on. In some way, it feels like the two of them are truly connected, and Bram can practically visualize it: glowing filaments spread out in every which way, bold and red-hot where one string leads to Mystery Boy.

 

✧

 

“Dude, something the matter?” Garrett is saying to him as they’re preparing to execute a dragback turn. “You’re looking a little loopy over there.”

The grass rustles sharply when a white blur streaks past Bram’s calf. The ball pitches neatly into the net - not without knocking down a few cones along the way.

“Just distracted,” Bram says. He already can’t wait to respond to the emails.

Fortunately, Garrett doesn’t comment on it further, swept away by the routine.

 

✧

 

“You have a stain on your face,” Simon points out at lunch, thumb pressed against the bend of his mouth.

“Do I?” Bram says, grinning, ignoring the way his heart is doing a piss-poor rendition of a Footloose dance choreography number. It’s doing all these odd gyrations, and the way Simon’s lips are set in a soft smile is only worsening the matter.

“Here,” Simon says, holding out a piece of tissue to him.

Their hands meet. Well, to be more accurate, Simon’s fingers lightly graze his skin, his touch a butterfly’s kiss soft. Fleeting. But it sets Bram on fire, nevertheless.

(He has it so bad.)

(He is so, so gay.)

 

✧

 

 

 

>    
>  **to** : blugreen118@gmail.com  
>  **from** : frommywindow1@gmail.com  
>  **subject** : oomFF
> 
> Well, I have to say, I never imagined that you once listened to Fallout Boy, Blue. I mean, Sugar, We’re Goin Down? Iconic. Though, I’m more of a Panic! At the Disco kind of guy, just letting you know, because Brendon Urie. Now, this might seem irrelevant, but I bet my grandma’s last five teeth that you were so talking about Sk8er Boi, if not Lacrymosa.
> 
> Okay, I’m just teasing you, so don’t scowl at me, please. (Or, at least I imagine that you are.) Because it’s making me feel like I’m some Grade-A asshole, even though I assure you I’m not.
> 
> Here’s a virtual Oreo. Hope that we can still remain friends :(
> 
> Jacques  
>  p.s why do they say that cats have nine lives? do you think they based it off of bogus scientific observations in the olden days, back when everyone probably didn’t even wipe their asses after taking a shit, or just because?  
>  also, why does listening to alphabet town at three in the morning when you’re exhausted seem like a surrealist’s version of a religious experience O.o

 

 Slowly but surely, Jacques is becoming more and more real. It’s as if he’s a smudge of shadow in Bram’s head, every message received bringing a bit of colour and detail each time. Chipping away at the blurriness, assembling his features from the words themselves. Molding the shadow to accommodate his personality, in the way a tailor adjusts clothes so that they fit right.

For some odd reason, the boy forming in Bram’s head is someone he pretty much sees on the daily.

Hazel eyes. Cute smile. Messy brown hair. Pale slender fingers.

Bram pinches himself.

 

✧

 

One day in English class, Simon is paired up with Bram to analyze a segment of an 18th century love story. Some schmaltzy epic, complete with dramatic monologues, arsenic poisoning, infidelity, and incest. So, a terrible read, all in all, but not a zero out of ten, definitely not; it’s too damn entertaining.

“Don’t you think this lady is kind of dense?” Simon is saying to him. “He’s totally in love with her, and she’s just oh, he must have the hots for someone else, I saw him ogle another girl for 0.1 seconds, and now I’m going to strike a bargain with one of Satan’s greasy-haired minions because all hope is lost. Quick, get out the pentagrams, Harold.” He runs his tongue along the seam of his lips. Fuck. “Imagine being this oblivious.”

“Imagine that, indeed,” Bram laughs, and Simon blushes slightly as he inches nearer.

They just had a quick lesson on the mechanics of dramatic irony a couple days ago, and Bram thinks: this is pretty fitting, if you ask him.

They’re near enough that Bram can smell him. He inhales.

Best. Damn. Decision. Ever.

There’s chocolate, vanilla, mint. And beneath that, a scent that’s soapy. Woodsmokey. Sunlit-y and warm. Simon turns his head just a little, and suddenly Bram can see the green flecks in his eyes. And there, nearing his pupils, the subtlest traces of sunset gold.

Wow. Just -

Bram wants to kiss him.

(Yeah, he is so irreversibly fucked.

And gay.)

 

✧

 

 

 

 

> **to** : blugreen118@gmail.com  
>  **from** : frommywindow1@gmail.com  
>  **subject** : :/
> 
> Have you ever had one of those crappy days where everything has gone down to absolute shit, and you’re just standing right in the middle of it all, wondering how on earth you got yourself stuck in the deepest pit of Hell aka satan’s asshole? Where you’re lost and don’t know what to fucking do, and the universe has seemingly turned its back against you because it’s a major flaming douchebag/piece of shit who likes screwing people over for the kicks.
> 
> And then you go to sleep, thinking that the badness will only get worse, but when you actually wake up you realize that hey, maybe this isn’t so bad. Things will get better soon. They have to. Like, surely God doesn’t hate me enough to cause eternal ruin to my life, because if Jesus could forgive that son of a bitch Judas (he did, didn’t he?) surely He, our most benevolent creator, can take it easy on me.
> 
> Then you go outside and find that the world seems softer that morning. Renewed, somehow. Beautiful, in the way that sunrises always are. And it’s like the sun is smiling down at you, and you can genuinely see the silver linings in the clouds overhead.
> 
> Ugh, anyway. Rant over. If you can’t tell, I tried to be poetic at the end over there, but it probably seems stupid in your eyes, Mr-I’ve-Probably-Read-Shakespeare-and-Frost-A-Trillion-Times. I mean, this is more of your thing, but an attempt is an attempt. I’ll get there, one day.
> 
> Love,  
>  Jacques  
>  p.s i see what you did there, blue. the love song of j. alfred prufrock? nice. (ok yes i totally googled the lines, lmao, don’t boo me, please.) + yes, i agree, the cat in a hat is truly a literary masterpiece

 

Bram has to know who Jacques is. The mystery is killing him.

Getting unbearable.

 

✧

 

The answer makes itself known when Bram is scrolling through Facebook one day, past his suburban aunts’ pictures of their kids goofing around, ignore-if-you-support-the-Devil clickbait quotes, food porn, and couple’s kiss selfies. The discovery is an accident, but maybe if Bram truly believed in fate, he’d say it was due to some sort of divine intervention.

There’s a photo his mom is tagged in, about this wide-eyed, gap-toothed five year old holding up a card of French phrases. One of the comments says, “How’s the French immersion program going for your munchkin, Agatha?”

Bram idly looks through the phrases, even if he’s not actually interested, and - hold on, what. His gaze zeroes in on those three words, like a camera’s focus snapping into high definition.

Jacques a dit.

Bram knows.

He knows.

Jacques. Jacques a dit. Simon says.

 _Simon_.

As in cute, cute Simon with the hazel eyes and half-moon smirk and theatre-kid geekiness - and oh god, Bram is going to lose it. For real.

All the pieces fit. A little too perfectly. It all makes sense now. Or maybe Bram had been hoping it would be Simon all along, so that the confirmation now feels a lot like the universe has been on his side this entire time.

Jesus. The realization should feel earth-shattering, momentous, but all it feels is like taking a huge inhale of air after you’ve held your breath for too long - a relief. Soft, subtle. Like dawn breaking out over a horizon.

Bram doesn't know what to do. Even if Bram is only guessing here, he’s absolutely certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that Jacques’s IRL identity is exactly who Bram thinks he is. He has to be.

He has to.

 

✧

 

And he is, Bram finds out when the photographs of their exchanges are leaked online. Not every single one, but a decent amount. Enough for Bram to get cold feet. Enough for him to say, “I can’t do this anymore.”

To stop.

 

✧

 

When Bram gets to school the following week, there’s been a discernible change in the air, and it’s all got to do with Simon Spier. Simon, with eyes the rich colour of earth; a smile brighter than summertime; hair that looks softer than crowfeather; and skin as pale as winter snow. Simon, with his Oreo addiction and awkwardness and love for Elliott Smith songs.

Simon, aka Jacques.

Aka Bram’s longtime crush.

They are in the hallways when Bram notices how Simon is walking with his shoulders turned inwards, head lowered down, as if he wants the ground to cleave beneath his feet and swallow him up. He looks lesser, smaller, wrong, wrong, wrong. Smudged and greyscale. A boy painted in dabs of monochrome.

Everything he is usually not.

It is not lost on Bram, the way Simon is shrinking away from the people around him. The way he freezes when he locks eyes with Martin Addison, his gaze turning dark and knife-belly sharp. His jaw clenching, hard. His hands curling into fists, skin stretched bone-white over his knuckles.

I’m sorry, Bram wants to say.

Bram wants to fix this.

 

✧

 

There’s a message online. And it’s clear. It tells Bram - no, Blue - to meet him at the ferris wheel after that Cabaret play. It tells Bram that he’ll be waiting.

Waiting.

 

✧

 

Simon is wearing black eyeliner. Black eyeliner.

He’s cute, normally, but this time? He’s fucking hot.

Bram finds himself transfixed to the way he is dancing, the movement a hybrid between sinuous and grounded. With colour, with ease. All sweeping gestures and bold lines. There are lights all around, brilliant and pulsing, and Bram cannot tear his gaze away. Cannot stop himself from falling, falling, falling.

Exhilaration thrums throughout the entire room. It sets like a fever on his tongue, his chest. His heart.

There are stars out here tonight, and they take the form of the glitter dusted on Simon’s hair. On the lapels of his suit.

The air tastes frenetic, frantic, charged, like constellations being rattled in the sky, and Bram can’t stand it anymore.

 

✧

 

Bram watches. Everyone watches.

The world is bright, tonight. Vaporwave clear. All neon lights and kinetic energy and sheer adrenaline. Throbbing music pounds from the speakers. Carrying around the fairgrounds, up into the sky above. There are smears of colour, screams of unfiltered euphoria. Rushing, tilting, whirling.

The air tastes buttery and sweet, oily and sugary. Like pretzels and funnel cake and cotton candy.

Simon is on his last ride, now. He looks a little bit worn-out.

His friends stare, anxiously. Nervously.

Then Martin Addison is stepping forward, buying him more tickets, and now Bram is moving forward, utterly exhilarated. His heart feels like it is going to burst in his chest.

Simon’s eyes are fixed onto the ground. Then, they look up.

His eyes widen.

Bram smiles, shyly. “It’s me. Blue.” Finally, he can breathe again.

There’s grinning and relieved shouts now. Simon still looks slightly stunned, like he cannot believe that Blue is really here. In the flesh.

Bram gets into the seat, and their elbows and knees align. It is like the whole universe has its gaze on them, holding its breath for what’s to come. A pleasant, twisting sensation carves a home beneath Bram’s ribcage. Laying claim to his heart.

Simon’s head turns, and this close Bram can see the lights dancing in the warm brown of his eyes. Can see the slightest parting of his lips. The faintest trace of a blush staining his cheeks.

He is beautiful.

The ride reaches the apex of its spin. Simon blinks, slowly, then says, “Blue.”

“Jacques,” Bram says.

“I want to kiss you,” he whispers.

Bram licks his bottom lip. “So kiss me,” he says.

And Simon does.

Their first kiss is soft, short-lived. More like just a brief touching of lips. When they pull away, the gap between them closes again, and it is everything Bram has ever wanted and more. Simon’s hands reach up to cup Bram’s jaw, tracing fire, flame. Light-headed, Bram fists his hands into Simon’s shirt, and Bram is falling, falling, falling.

Blood is not running in his veins anymore, but the night sky. Galaxies liquefied.

The crowd below breaks into wild applause, as Simon’s mouth curves against Bram’s.

 

✧

 

Later on, when they are alone, walking side-by-side, hand-in-hand, Bram pulls Simon behind a tree and says, “I want to kiss you again.”

“So do it,” Simon says, this time.

And Bram does.

**Author's Note:**

> 20gayteen is looking good, my friends


End file.
